Mary Plazas

Gallery

Letters of a Love Betrayed (ROH2)

Cio-Cio San (English National Opera)

Maria di Rohan (Buxton Festival)

Blue Fairy, Pinocchio (Opera North)

Duchess, Powder Her Face (Nevill Holt)

Elisabetta, Regina d'Inghilterra (English Touring Opera)

Duchess, Powder Her Face (Dresden)

POWDER HER FACE/SEMPEROPER DRESDEN

“The English soprano, Mary Plazas, displayed the multiple facets of this woman, the morally calculating femme fatale, the unapproachable high priestess of beauty, her sexual freedom and her loneliness. With her warm, seductive vocal colour….she awakened compassion for the lonely, bitter and desperate woman.” IOCO, Kultur im Netz, October 2023

“Mary Plazas is a Duchess with a unanimous strength and truth. Familiar with this role which she has performed under the direction of the composer, she takes an obvious pleasure in playing as much as singing.” Forumopera.com (Le Magazine du Monde Lyrique) October 2023

ELISABETTA, REGINA D’INGHILTERRA/ENGLISH TOURING OPERA

“…but the true star of the evening was Mary Plazas, who made a plucky Elisabetta, able to negotiate many of the challenges Rossini set for Colbran. It’s not the largest of voices but she tucked into the coloratura resolutely, moving around the stage in haughty fashion…..Plazas’s finely spun legato made her closing aria the highlight of the lengthy evening.” Opera Magazine, May 2019

“Mary Plazas is a classy artist who, as Elisabeth, presents a figure of natural authority on stage and is kitted out to kill as she rails against Leicester’s faithlessness.” Sunday Times, March 2019

“Mary Plazas admirably captures Elizabeth’s loneliness of soul and crises of conscience in singing of refined beauty.” Guardian, March 2019

“….one character who really comes alive — Mary Plazas’s red-headed Elizabeth, a plausible mix of regal authority, human desires and wily glances.” The Times, March 2019

“Mary Plazas as Elizabeth expresses the whole gamut of her character’s unhappy emotions.” Independent, March 2019

“Elizabeth herself is exceptionally well sung by Mary Plazas.” Daily Mail, March 2019

“Central to this was the stunning performance of Mary Plazas as the aging Queen Elizabeth I. This is the diva role, she gets to close the show with a bravura Rondo. If you can ignore the libretto’s historical solecisms then the role of Elisabetta has some cracking moments as the plot shows her struggling with public regality and private feelings, Mary Plazas made Rossini’s elaborate vocal writing count as emotional drama, she had the ability to really snap it out when needed. Perhaps the passagework was not always pinpoint, but Plazas showed us how to create drama out of this technical display.” Planet Hugill, March 2019

“And it was good to see Mary Plazas again (singing Elizabeth), and remember what a great singing actress she is, with a knack for the stillness that speaks, and a non-histrionic style gravid with suppressed, roiling emotions.” Critics Circle, March 2019

“The extremely committed cast is headed by Mary Plazas as Elisabetta who, with her rich and vibrant soprano, commands the stage, while also hinting at all of the monarch’s calculations and vulnerabilities.” Musicomh, March 2019

“Mary Plazas defines Elizabeth as a strong woman given to anger, jealousy and cunning – probably needing all three to survive.” The Stage, March 2019

POWDER HER FACE/NEVILL HOLT OPERA

“Mary Plazas’s performance as the Duchess is at the centre of it all, conjuring up a compelling portrait of a pathetic and ultimately empty woman.” Guardian, July 2018

“Arguably somewhat soft-grained vocally for such an unashamedly hard-edged woman, soprano Mary Plazas takes on this starring role, and in terms of physicality – especially those facial expressions which this small venue allows the audience to see – she lays all the human dimensions of a flawed but proud individual before us. Her interpretation is a true tour-de-force.” The Stage, July 2018

POWDER HER FACE/IRISH NATIONAL OPERA

“….top accolades go to Plazas, whose Duchess was at once despicable for her sense of entitlement and her racist and anti-Semitic views, and heartbreakingly vulnerable with her realisation at the end that “the only people who were ever good to me were paid for it”.” backtrack, March 2018

“Star of the show is soprano Mary Plazas who gives an extraordinary performance as Duchess over the course of six decades from breezy debutant to fragile old lady ignominiously evicted from her Mayfair hotel.” Irish Examiner, February 2018

POWDER HER FACE/NORTHERN IRELAND OPERA

“Antony McDonald’s stylishly self-designed production (set and costumes) is by a distance the most satisfactory of the five I have seen, mainly because at its centre is the spellbinding performance of the singing actress Mary Plazas, who flaunts all of the Duchess’s unattractive traits — snobbery, venality, entitled arrogance — yet, like Janacek’s Kostelnicka or Emilia Marty, retains the audience’s sympathy. This richly nuanced, warts-and-all portrait is outstandingly well sung by a soprano with plenty of form in the part. She even manages to play the notorious fellatio scene, performed on the so-called “headless man”— here, a hotel waiter — with dignity, no mean feat as her singing morphs into a gurgly hum. It’s funny, but oddly heroic….A triumph for McDonald, NI Opera and, above all, Plazas.” The Sunday Times

“At the epicentre, however, is Mary Plazas as the Duchess. In a truly great piece of operatic acting, she makes this paper monster of egocentricity absurd yet pitiable in her delusions and humiliation, thus making moral and emotional sense of the entire opera. “ The Telegraph

“Mary Plazas was the most compelling Duchess I’ve seen, sexually needy and repulsively self-centred, yet also conveying a hollow loneliness.” The Times

“But the dramatic climax arrives in the final scene when Plazas crafts a long moment of breathless despair, rendering the ageing Margaret a pathetic figure, resorting to her familiar tricks in a desperate effort to avoid eviction from her opulent hotel suite as the bills go unpaid.” The Stage

“At the epicentre is Adés’ Duchess played by the superb Mary Plazas, whose fitful charisma and powerful singing voice easily keeps the audience engaged for the two hour run time. The opera spans decades, but Plazas convincingly embodies the young, naive and sex-fuelled mid-20th century socialite as well as the somberly reflective and somewhat eccentric divorcée of the 1970s and ‘90s.” Culture Northern Ireland

“Plazas is sensational at bringing to life the loftiness and arrogance of the Duchess that on a coin flip becomes earth shattering vulnerability, fear and mental distress. By the close of the piece she is reduced to a barely clothed, slightly hunched, distressed shadow. The line: ‘the only people who were good to me, were paid for it’ is a devastating blow.” The Reviews Hub

MADAMA BUTTERFLY/PERTH INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL

“Plazas was mesmerising: delicate but (when necessary) forceful and even sharply etched in voice. At times she reminded me of the great Renata Scotto (whom another famous Cio-Cio San, Maria Callas, once gave a standing ovation in defiance of hecklers). This was a mature Butterfly who knew her own mind and was fully conscious of her fate: the maturity of the singer’s voice, face and characterisation lending added pathos to her tiny body and deliberately doll-like gestures.” Daily Review, February 2015

“Plazas captures the fragility and playfulness of the fifteen-year old Cio-Cio-San with such grace.” ABC Perth, February 2015

CAPRICCIO/ROYAL OPERA HOUSE

“Special praise is also due to Barry Banks and Mary Plazas as the farcical Italian singers…” Telegraph, July 2013

“…Mary Plazas and Barry Banks as the Italian singers, added further panache.” Financial Times, July 2013

“…the duet of a Neapolitan tenor and soprano, hilariously over the top in the hands of golden-voiced Barry Banks and Mary Plazas, friends reunited some years after their perfect partnership in the English National Opera production of Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore.” The Arts Desk, July 2013

EDGAR/NEW SUSSEX OPERA

“Mary Plazas gave an affecting portrayal of the gentle Fidelia, her soprano soaring easily to the highest demands of the role, her beautifully shapes singing expressive of her love for Edgar and her grief when he is supposed to be dead in battle; her ravishing fourth-act solo was a vocal peak.” Opera Magazine, January 2013

“Mary Plazas’s tender Fidelia, and Gweneth-Ann Jeffers’s seductive Tigrana were the stars.” Observer, October 2012

MADAM BUTTERFLY/ENGLISH NATIONAL OPERA

“At the centre of this visual splendour is the diminutive figure of Mary Plazas,great of heart and great of voice,returning to the role of Cio-Cio San. She sings,moves and lives with a strength and authenticity of emotion which is given time and space to express itself-both in the stage direction and in the sensitive and perceptive conducting of Oleg Caetani. When Butterfly speaks of her hurt passing ‘like shadows of clouds upon the ocean’, for the forst time perhaps, we hear this image living with the orchestra too.” The Times, May 2012

“Butterfly, meanwhile, is a role Mary Plazas was born to play; hers is a sensitive and detailed reading of great emotional weight.” London Evening Standard, May 2012

“Ms Plazas’ size made it rather more realistic than usual that she could be 15 – ‘so very tiny’ as the translation says – vulnerable, infatuated, disillusioned and despairing by turns, hers was a performance of considerable accomplishment and the depth of her character’s vulnerability and despair was plain to see.” Seen and Heard, May 2012

MARIA DI ROHAN/BUXTON FESTIVAL

“The part of Maria is demanding a requires vocal stamina of a rare kind. Mary Plazas, who has become a leading exponent of such roles, triumphed yet again…” Opera Magazine, September 2011

“Mary Plazas has great presence in the title role…Maria’s every moment is tracked by Plazas with dignity and great vocal eloquence.” The Times July 2011

“…there was some fine singing, especially from Mary Plazas as the put-upon Maria.” Sunday Times, July 2011

LETTERS OF A LOVE BETRAYED/MUSIC THEATRE WALES AT THE LINBURY

“The undisputed star of the show is Mary Plazas as Analia, as usual acting and singing her socks off. I don’t know what the woman is on, but it certainly works.” Opera Now, October 2009

“The unstoppable Mary Plazas flings herself into the role of Analia with her usual fierce commitment.” Telegraph, October 2009

“Mary Plazas is excellent as the dreamy girl with the inner strength to seize back her life and land in a macho society.” The Times, October 2009

“…especially in the vocally resilient and dramatically assured presentation of Anilía by soprano Mary Plazas.” The Guardian, October 2009

LUCREZIA BORGIA/BUXTON FESTIVAL

“All the principals distinguished themselves. Mary Plazas…ending as mistress of all she surveyed in a searing cabaletta.” Opera Magazine, August 2009

“Mary Plazas gave a titanic performance in the title role, negotiating Donizetti’s coloratura sweeps with heroic abandon.” Financial Times, June 2009

“But the performance’s greatest virtue is a well-matched, well-integrated cast, led by the remarkable Mary Plazas in the title-role…she simply got better and better, rising to tragic heights in the tremendous last scene. Despite her tiny bodily frame, Plazas has extraordinary vocal endurance, and her vivid facial features make her an arrestingly expressive actress.” Telegraph, June 2009

“…in her final virtuoso aria, Plazas …yield[ed] a truly magnificent tour de force of Donizettian bel canto.” The Times, June 2009

“By the finale she was in quite magnificent estate, and whilst in this variation Lucrezia takes poison herself, we were not denied a superb acted and vocal conclusion from her that was justifiably applauded to the rafters.” Seen and Heard International, June 2009

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